Perspectives in the Study of Indigenous Migration to Cities in

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© 2015 Urbanities
Perspectives in the Study of Indigenous Migration to Cities in Mexico1
Victoria Chenaut
(Centre for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology, Mexico)
[email protected]
Indigenous migration to cities in Mexico has been the focus of a range of research initiatives in Mexican
anthropology, as new research approaches, questions and problems have emerged. In the context of a
strengthened indigenous movement and of constitutional reforms that recognize cultural diversity and
indigenous rights, the enhanced visibility of indigenous migrants that started in the 1990s has led to the
development of new research topics, which are analysed in this article.
Keywords: indigenous, migration, cities, rights.
Introduction
In this article I provide an overview of the approaches used by anthropologists since the
1990s in their research on indigenous migration to cities. The introduction of new paradigms
in the social sciences and the emergence of social movements have led to a reformulation of
both the questions raised by such research and the theoretical positions from which they have
been addressed. One issue that stands out is related to a growing interest in demonstrating that
gender inequalities and the recognition of ethnic identity are not only a source of vulnerability
and discrimination for migrants, but also form the basis for the demands related to rights and
citizenship put forward by urban indigenous organizations.
I focus mainly on research carried out in Mexico City, in addition to studies carried out
in two cities in northern Mexico, Monterrey and Tijuana. By including these other cities, I
attempt to show some of the similarities and differences that characterize migrants’ living
conditions in the urban contexts in which they are inserted and how these have been
addressed in the literature. In Mexico City, the process of industrialization that began in the
1940s and 1950s attracted many migrants from rural settings, for whom this city became the
primary destination (Kemper 1976: 52). These movements of population led to the insertion,
and in many cases, assimilation, of migrants into city life, which has made their social and
identity integration a central issue in studies of migration to Mexico City. It is important to
keep in mind not only that migrants of diverse ethnicities from all over Mexico live in Mexico
City, making it a multicultural city, but also that this city is home to the Náhuatl people — the
descendants of the native people of the Mexico valley — who have been incorporated into
urban life as the city has grown, thus modifying their traditional lifestyles and in many cases
leading to the loss of their farmland. I will expand later on how the different situations of the
two kinds of indigenous people who live in Mexico City have led to specific demands related
to their ethnic, social and cultural rights.
1
A preliminary version of this article was presented jointly with Soledad González Montes at the
Conference ‘Issues of Legitimacy: Entrepreneurial Culture, Corporate Responsibility and Urban
Development’ (promoted by the Commission on Urban Anthropology, Naples, Italy, September
2012). I am grateful to Soledad González Montes for her collaboration and to the National Science and
Technology Council (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACYT) for support provided
through the Mexico Chair to continue this work at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.
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The city of Tijuana is characterized by its position on the border between two countries
(Mexico and the United States) and by the fact that it provides infrastructure and services to
people in transit, aiming to cross legally or illegally into the United States. Life in Tijuana
entails exposure to the cultural influence of the United States, with its codes and regulations,
and the ever present reality that crossing the border involves potential access to employment,
which would ensure the reproduction of the family unit. In Tijuana many migrants are
commuters living in Mexico and traveling daily or weekly to work in the United States
(Velasco and Vargas 2010: 106). The influence of the border is expressed in many ways,
causing a reconfiguration of ethnicity, as ‘transnationalization means that subjects live in
different state and national frameworks at the same time’2 (Velasco 2002: 166). Migrants’
lives are marked by international migration and by the everyday presence of ‘coyotes’ (people
who charge a fee to help undocumented migrants to cross illegally into the United States), of
migrants from different parts of Mexico and from Central America who are eager to cross ‘to
the other side’ and of tourists from the United States who travel to Tijuana for cheap
entertainment and shopping; they are the main customers of the indigenous Mixtec street
vendors in downtown Tijuana (Velasco 2002).
Indigenous migrants in Monterrey have been invisible to public policy and social
research until recently, for migration to this city began slowly in the 1970s and has only
increased since the 1990s, with migrants coming from the states of Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí
and Veracruz (Durin and Moreno 2008: 92). Proof of this invisibility lies in the fact that the
first public policy aimed at indigenous people in Nuevo León was developed in 1998, and the
Commission for the Development of Indigenous People (CDI)3 first established a subdelegation in the city of Monterrey as late as 2006 (Durin 2008: 26).
The different characteristics of these cities where indigenous migrants have settled have
influenced the ways in which researchers have addressed the topic of urban migration. While
in Mexico City the emphasis has been on studying the causes of migration and the patterns of
assimilation, insertion and reproduction of ethnic identity (Arizpe 1975, Kemper 1976), in
Tijuana a central line of research has been to explore ethnic agency and ethnicity in the
context of the transnational situation in that city (Velasco 2002, 2005, 2010). In contrast, the
studies carried out in Monterrey are largely marked by the need to define the study subjects,
emphasizing a combination of demographic and social anthropological approaches to make
these subjects visible and to provide an overall picture, in addition to pursuing qualitative
lines of research further to explore specific issues (Durin 2008: 36 and 39).
In the 1990s, indigenous migrants to Mexican cities acquired greater visibility as a
result of ethnic mobilizations related to the strengthening of the indigenous movement, the
signing of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169, which recognizes the
collective rights of indigenous people, and the indigenous uprising led by the Zapatista
The original Spanish reads: ‘la transnacionalización implica que los sujetos viven al mismo tiempo
en marcos estatales y nacionales diferentes’.
3
This is the ‘Comisión para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas’, or CDI, formerly the National
Indigenist Institute (Instituto Nacional Indigenista).
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National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) in the state of
Chiapas, demanding social justice, land and democracy and engendering an intense debate on
indigenous rights in Mexican political and academic circles. In this context, the Mexican
government introduced multicultural policies and in 1992 approved reforms to Article 4 of the
Constitution, in recognition of the country’s cultural diversity. In 2001, Article 2 was also
modified, recognizing indigenous rights and autonomy. Despite criticism on the limitations of
these reforms, it is nonetheless significant that for the first time indigenous people were
recognized at constitutional level, questioning the idea of homogeneity and legal equality that
had prevailed until then (Aragón 2007).
Research Issues and Approaches
Indigenous migration to cities has long been studied in Mexican anthropology, and new
research approaches, questions and problems have consistently emerged. Robert Kemper
(1987) identifies two broad paradigms in migration studies in Mexico, which I will explore
briefly here. Until the late 1960s and early 1970s, a research perspective Kemper calls
‘culturalism’ predominated; influenced by scholars from Europe and the United States, it
favoured case studies from an empirical and inductive perspective. Migration research
emphasized analyses of sociocultural change, using a model that opposed tradition and
modernity. Authors were thus concerned with analysing the causes of migration and family
coping strategies, as well as values, attitudes and forms of adaptation to and assimilation into
the broader society. In this context, the work of Oscar Lewis (1961) stands out. Lewis
conducted his research in the mid-twentieth century among peasants who migrated to Mexico
City. He contributed a new methodology, which, instead of focusing on classic studies of
community, took as the unit of analysis migrants’ families and individuals scattered
throughout different neighbourhoods in Mexico City.
The late 1960s and especially the 1970s saw the consolidation of an approach that
Kemper (1987) calls ‘historical-structuralism’. This approach was influenced by Marxism and
Latin American social scientists who, from a theoretical and deductive perspective,
emphasized the importance of understanding migration as tied to the conditions created by
dependent development in the capitalist system. The general approaches were thus aimed at
emphasizing the social, political and class conditions that affect migration. Analyses of the
causes of migration underscored such issues as the structural incapacity of the system to
absorb the growth of the population (Nolasco et al. 1979: 10). Here, the work of Lourdes
Arizpe (1975, 1978) stands out. She asks how ethnicity influences migration patterns and
concludes that, while there are structural explanations for migration, it has a specific historical
nature and thus it is important to analyse its dynamics in order to understand the different
forms that it takes (1978: 228).
Since the 1980s, research on women in diverse spheres of social life has intensified in
Mexico, and new debates and approaches have produced a shift from studies of ‘women’ to
analyses based on the concept of ‘gender’, which entails an analysis of the hierarchies and
relations of power that connect the two sexes (Alberti 2004). According to Cristina
Oehmichen (2005: 22), it was not until the 1990s that studies on the culture of migrants to
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cities were once again undertaken, especially studies about identity issues and, to a lesser
extent, interethnic relations. The greater visibility of the migrant population in Mexico since
the 1990s, underpinned by the forms of organization of the indigenous movement and rightsbased demands, has stimulated new research questions and topics.
Some Common Problems
Since the 1990s, notable contributions to the study of indigenous migration to cities have
addressed four broad themes: ethnicity and identity; family, kinship and social networks;
gender; and the link between ethnicity, justice and rights. These themes have not all been
explored to the same depth. While there is a significant body of literature addressing the first
three issues, that of justice and rights, which has gained a great deal of public visibility over
the last two decades, is an emerging line of research of great relevance for public policy
related to migrants. I will address this issue in the next section.
The literature shows that the employment held by indigenous migrants is not
homogeneous in nature. However, the common denominator among those with low wages is
that men work in jobs that require physical strength, which tends to give them access to jobs
that entail heavy labour, such as loaders at the La Merced market in Mexico City, while
women’s work largely consists of street vending and domestic employment (Oehmichen
2005). How do men’s and women’s employment affect their social interaction and the way in
which they express their demands for their rights? On this point, the volume edited by
Séverine Durin (2008) is instructive, as it explores two different types of jobs. On the one
hand, she looks at indigenous men and women who work as street vendors in the city of
Monterrey. They, she reports, are permanently harassed by the police due to their lack of
street vendor permits and face a situation of conflict that constitutes an incentive to become
organized, establish relationships with state institutions and demand their rights; thus, they
acquire greater visibility and their work allows them to reside in densely populated
neighbourhoods. On the other hand, and in contrast, women who are domestic workers and
live in the homes of their employers, generally located in middle or upper middle class
neighbourhoods, are isolated from one another. This dispersal fosters their invisibility; yet, it
does not lead to a rupture of the ties on which their ethnic identities are based, as they
participate actively in networks based on family and on shared places of origin (Durin 2008:
33 and 35).
The gender approach has also placed an emphasis on studying family dynamics and the
situation of women migrants (Ariza 2000: 39). The presence of women in migratory
processes was originally noted in the pioneering study by Lourdes Arizpe on the ‘Marias’
(Mazahua indigenous women engaged in street vending) in Mexico City (1975). Since then,
studies have endeavoured to distinguish between men’s and women’s reasons for migration,
identify the different kinds of employment they engage in and examine their roles in the
reproduction of the group (Arizpe 1975, Oehmichen 2005). Recent research on gender issues
among indigenous migrants has indicated that women migrants are social actors who play an
active role in shaping their own lives and that new migratory patterns involve a redefinition of
family dynamics (both in the places of origin and in the new places of residence), in which
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gender roles, as well as rights and obligations within the family, are negotiated and redefined
(D’Aubeterre 2000). There remains much to investigate in this respect, and Marina Ariza’s
(2000: 48) question, ‘can migration modify the asymmetry between men and women?’4 is still
valid.
The issues of identity and networks are closely related, as networks (based on kinship,
place of origin, membership of an organization) ultimately constitute bonds upon which
ethnic identity is based and reproduced. References to networks are numerous in the
literature. Oehmichen (2005) employs an innovative approach to this topic, emphasizing from
a gender perspective the social construction, dynamism and flexibility of networks among
relatives. Among the Mazahua families that she studied, networks are formed around the
relationships established by the women, and in them expressions of loyalty, solidarity and
mutual support in child care and child rearing are predominant. In any case, networks of
relatives and people from the same place are rooted in a feeling of shared origins and
constitute a social capital that protects migrants from the vulnerability and marginality they
experience in the city (Oehmichen 2005: 386-387). Authors agree on the role that migrant
networks play in the survival, reproduction and protection of the members of the group. The
networks that bring women together are an expression of this aspect; in the face of
widespread violence, women take care of each other, protect each other and watch over what
happens in each other’s lives (Chavarría 2008: 199). However, the role of networks extends
beyond this, as they are, in turn, the basis on which indigenous organizations are established.
One example is given by Laura Velasco (2002: 49), who addresses indigenous
organization on the Mexico-US border and, interestingly, shows that both networks and
organizations are built on the deep ties and solidarities that develop among relatives and
people from the same place. She argues that ‘migrant organizations could not exist without
the networks.’5 For instance, the Binational Oaxacan Indigenous Front (Frente Indígena
Oaxaqueño Binacional, FIOB), which brings together Mixtec, Zapotec, Triqui and Mix
indigenous people, extends over the national territory and also crosses borders. From a
perspective that aims to analyse the impact of migration on ethnic identity, Velasco (2002:
45) sees ethnicity as a resource that makes it possible not only to deal with vulnerability, but
also to produce organizations with the ‘capacity to construct an ethnic project that is
expressed in a social awareness.’6
However, Carmen Martínez (2004, 2006), who conducted research in Baja California
with migrants living in Tijuana and with those working as day labourers in commercial
agriculture for export in the San Quintín Valley, became interested in investigating the
capacity of the state to create identity through institutions such as the CDI. She also
conducted research on the responses of marginal groups in society to multicultural policies
that recognize cultural diversity and encourage these parts of the population to identify
The original Spanish reads: ‘¿es capaz la migración de alterar la asimetría entre hombres y mujeres?’
The original Spanish reads: ‘sin las redes no podrían existir las organizaciones de migrantes’.
6
The original Spanish reads: ‘capacidad para construir un proyecto étnico que se hace manifiesto en
una conciencia social’.
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themselves as indigenous. She found that the kind of ethnicity promoted by the government
employees who apply these policies superimposes a generic and stereotypical ethnic identity
that does not recognize the specificities of migrants’ experiences. Due to difficult living and
working conditions, for most migrants their indigenous identity functions as a stigma that
hinders their social and economic progress and that they try to avoid. Thus they prefer cultural
assimilation, which involves their integration into the broader society as citizens. Therefore,
Martínez suggests that the recognition of difference is not demanded by most migrants, due to
the racism that excludes them from access to resources and opportunities.
This case of migrants in Baja California demonstrates the need to explore further the
issue of identity among indigenous migrants and shows that multicultural policies that
recognize cultural diversity have different effects among indigenous people, depending on the
contexts in which they are applied and the specific gender, age and status of the people to
whom they are targeted. Relevant studies have been carried out among young people who
migrate to the cities to work, as well as among second- and third-generation migrants who
live in large urban centres. In the next section I discuss this research on younger generations,
which aims to shed light on issues of cultural assimilation and on demands for ethnic rights.
Indigenous youth were rarely addressed in the anthropological studies carried out in
Mexico prior to the 1990s, when the emergence of new research approaches and
methodologies, the increase in the migration of indigenous and mestizo youth to the cities and
the expansion of the use of media such as television and the internet, among other factors,
made indigenous youth more visible (Urteaga 2008, Pérez 2008a). Here I am interested in
emphasizing several points of relevance in the studies of indigenous migrant youth, as they
underscore the tensions that occur between parents and children around the children’s
reproduction of social values and in connection with the practices associated with community
life and the cultural traditions of their places of origin, to which the parents are more attached.
Urteaga (2008) reflects on how young people question certain relations of power that occur in
the community context, while at the same time research shows how forms of social control
that are rooted in community values and norms are in some ways reproduced in the urban life
of migrants; one thinks of the persistence of asymmetries and long-standing views on gender
roles such as supposedly honourable feminine conduct, even as increasing numbers of young
women travel to the cities in order to find work. This is what Jahel López (2013: 153) found
in terms of social control over the exercise of female sexuality, though the context of
migration has also led to changes and greater flexibility in how marriage arrangements are
made. Something similar has been found among women migrants in Monterrey who work as
live-in domestic employees. These women must watch their conduct in order to protect their
reputations in the face of the moral sanctions applied to women who freely exercise their
sexuality, which their families find out about through rumours and comments spread by
acquaintances, friends and relatives (Díaz 2009: 173).
Despite the racism and stigma associated with being indigenous, living in the city
undoubtedly offers young people new opportunities to work, study, connect with each other
and have fun. This is evident in the ethnographies on the importance of dance halls in Mexico
City (López 2013) and on the Alameda in Monterrey, a public plaza that used to be a
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recreation site for the city’s middle and upper classes but has now been ‘appropriated’ by
indigenous youth as a place for courting and socializing (Díaz 2009). In both cases, these
urban places constitute spaces for dialogue, identity negotiation and intercultural relationships
with mestizos and youth of other ethnicities, as well as for belonging to new networks based
on friendship. As Maya Lorena Pérez (2008b) argues, in the cities young indigenous people
are exercising their capacities to make decisions about how they want to live their lives. The
accelerated processes of change that they experience, with the attendant tensions and
conflicts, pose a broad range of questions to be further investigated along a thematic line of
research that Urteaga (2008: 704) describes as an ‘anthropology of borders’,7 which takes into
account how the categories of young, Indian and migrant are being constructed ‘inside a new
area and outside the borders of worlds that until recently seemed fixed and unchangeable…’.8
Uretaga believes, nonetheless, that the parents’ world continues to have an influence on how
young people build their lives.
New Perspectives on a Key Issue: The Relation between Ethnicity, Justice and Rights
Migrants’ demands for ethnic rights started to acquire prominence in the national setting in
the early 1990s in light of the Zapatista movement and of the rise of movements for
indigenous rights in Latin America. In this context, the ethnic rights discourse became a
central strategy used by migrants to negotiate with the state in their efforts to have their
demands met (Velasco and Vargas 2010: 104 and 116). The magnitude of the impact of
Zapatismo and its demands for autonomy is evident in the fact that this issue appears
repeatedly in the arguments of indigenous organizations such as the FIOB. Migrants demand
ethnic rights and recognition as social actors in various ways, while also demanding that the
state and authorities respect their human rights (Oehmichen 2005: 13).
According to Oehmichen (2007), men and women migrants have in common their
vulnerability and lack of rights, and they all face discrimination and racism from mestizo
society. This has led Oehmichen (2005: 184, 191) to consider their condition to be similar to
that of undocumented migrants, as they, too, lack job stability, social security and social
services. This vulnerability also promotes the concentration of migrants in specific
neighbourhoods or districts and the strengthening of their networks and organizations
(Sánchez C. 2004: 72-73). The importance of networks is also evident in the migrants’
‘extraterritorial communities’9 (Oehmichen 2001: 185), whose members may reside in
different regions of a country and even in different countries. This is the case with migrants to
the United States, who maintain ties with their communities of origin as they keep their sense
of belonging to their ethnic group or place of birth.
Other authors have emphasized that migrants’ vulnerability helps to explain why they
seek support in the networks of relatives and people who originate from the same place. It is
The original Spanish reads: ‘antropología de frontera’.
The original Spanish reads: ‘dentro de una zona nueva y fuera de las fronteras de los mundos que
hasta hace poco parecían fijos e inmutables…’
9
Original Spanish: ‘comunidades extraterritoriales’.
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worth reiterating that these networks provide a social capital that can protect them from the
violence that they experience as migrants; a product, that is, of the asymmetric relations in
terms of gender, class and ethnic identity (Chavarría 2008: 176). Women suffer violence
within the home, workers experience it through the hierarchies and relations of power in the
work context; because of their identities as indigenous people, they are also subject to
discrimination, racism and the abuse of power by the authorities and the police (Chavarría
2008: 199). In this sense, the vulnerability of indigenous migrants is similar to that of
international migrants who lack legal permits to enter and stay in a country; thus, their rights
are limited and they experience a ‘lack of power’10 also through daily discrimination, as is the
case of Hispanics in the United States (Bustamante 2001: 28). In the case of the migrants
analysed in this article, there is no context of illegality because they reside in their own
country; however, their lack of power, as discussed by Bustamante, is evident in the fact that
many of them do not have birth certificates, which prevents them from obtaining other official
documents, and in the fact that they are often unaware of their rights as citizens and workers.
Taking as a point of departure the notion that ethnic identities ‘are a product of
historically constructed social relations’,11 Oehmichen (2005: 297) explores the question of
sociocultural change and notes that certain ethnic markers have been re-functionalized since
the rise of the issue of indigenous rights. Indigenous language and dress, which in many cases
had been abandoned to avoid discrimination, are now used when negotiating with the state
from their position as indigenous people. This strategic use and manipulation of ethnicity in
accordance with the context and circumstances at hand suggests that ethnicity becomes an
element that differentiates these actors from the rest of the urban poor; the political use of
ethnicity enables them to ‘better defend their rights’12 (Oemichen 2005: 400). This has led to
a greater visibility of migrants, who reaffirm themselves as indigenous people and stress their
ethnic and cultural identity (Igreja 2005: 306 and 312).
This revaluation of indigenous people’s ethnic identity and language has not occurred in
a homogeneous manner in Mexico City. Various factors have played a role in such a process.
People’s socio-economic status and, as Maya Lorena Pérez (2007) emphasizes, social
differentiation in the migrants’ places of origin affect the ways in which they settle into the
city. It is important to keep in mind that not all indigenous people residing in Mexico City
live in poverty, though a large number do. Equally important, as Igreja (2008) points out,
there are Mazahua migrants who do not teach their children their language so that they will
not experience racism and discrimination, while Triqui migrants are more attached to their
customs and they do teach their language to their children and generally consider it
appropriate to impart justice within their group in accordance with the norms and practices of
their communities of origin. It is the young who, as a result of their greater integration into
city life, mainly question this process of ethnic revaluation; however, through their
participation in different indigenous organizations and the contributions they make drawing
The original Spanish reads: ‘carencia de poder’.
The original Spanish reads: ‘son producto de relaciones sociales históricamente construidas’.
12
The original Spanish reads: ‘defender mejor sus derechos’.
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on their experiences and perspectives, many young people have come to ‘discover the best of
their culture as well as that which they do not think should be reproduced’ 13 (Igreja 2008:
235). In a sense, they seem to choose tradition and, at the same time, continue to live actively
in the city and take advantage of what it has to offer.
The rights demanded by migrants are varied and are a consequence of the vulnerability,
conflicts and different contexts in which they are situated. In the case of the street vendors,
what stands out are the demands related to abuses by the authorities and those in defence of
their business, leading Séverine Durin (2008: 50) to argue that ‘they have managed to be
recognized as an entity with collective rights.’14 Other demands aim at highlighting the lack
of labour, political and social rights, as well as the legal vacuum in the current legislation,
which does not take into account the ethnic and cultural diversity that exists in the cities
(Yanes 2004: 207). The authors who have addressed this topic stress the peculiar situation of
indigenous migrants, who have a sense of community based on their shared origin anchored
to their towns and communities and to their group belonging, but because of their migration
do not have a territory. This paradox seems to constitute a central point for the indigenous
rights of urban migrants: how can they demand autonomy if they are not associated with a
territory?
Indigenous rights in Mexico City must also be understood in view of the fact that
indigenous descendants of the area’s original inhabitants, known as ‘native people’,15 also
live in several municipalities in Mexico City (Mora ed. 2007). Dispossessed of their land
since the colonial period, they are rooted in their territory and face difficulties raised by illegal
settlements, the development of new neighbourhoods and the expropriation of their land for
public works (Mora ed. 2007: 41 and 119), which, among other problems, has led to water
scarcity and to the violation of their human and cultural rights (Pérez 2002). They, therefore,
demand recognition of their territorial autonomy, unlike migrants who, lacking territory, can
only demand ‘cultural autonomy’16 (Sánchez C. 2004: 80).
There is consensus among writer on this issue that the ethnic rights of urban indigenous
people transcend territorial rights (Martínez and de la Peña 2004: 133; Oehmichen 2005:
198). The Assembly of Indigenous Migrants (Asamblea de Migrantes Indígenas), which
includes indigenous people of various ethnicities, demands recognition of the autonomy and
ethnic rights of these people in spite of the fact that they do not have their own territory
(Sánchez P. C. et al. 2004). The Assembly has developed an agenda for reflection and study
in order to debate the issue of urban indigenous people, with the issue of ‘how to participate
in this process of struggle’17 as a starting point (Ortiz 2006: 270-271).
The original Spanish reads: ‘descubrir lo mejor de su cultura y lo que les parece inadecuado
reproducir’.
14
The original Spanish reads: ‘han conseguido ser reconocidos como un ente con derechos
colectivos’.
15
The original Spanish reads: ‘pueblos originarios’.
16
The original Spanish reads: ‘autonomía cultural’.
17
The original Spanish reads: ‘cómo insertarse en este proceso de lucha’.
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In the political context that has developed since the 1990s, urban indigenous people
question being referred to as ‘migrants’, as they associate this word with the subordination
and exclusion to which they are subjected in urban life; they ask to be called, instead,
‘indigenous residents’18 in the city (Banda and Martínez 2006: 286-287). However, this
change in terminology does not do away with the tension that exists in the demands for rights
expressed by the two groups of indigenous people who live in Mexico City; specifically, the
native people demand collective rights based on territory, while indigenous residents can only
demand to be able to exercise their rights as individuals (López 2006: 364).
Dolores Figueroa (2005: 250) asks, ‘What does the distinction between migrant and
native imply in terms of the granting of rights?’19 She concludes that, drawing on different
priorities, they demand different rights,. Among other issues, migrants’ demands are related
to ‘limited access to the basic level of services, and to racism, discrimination, lack of access
to full citizenship; lack of access to bilingual/bicultural education; school dropout rates; the
lack of public policies with respect to migrant women and children’20 (Figueroa 2005: 262).
In contrast, indigenous people who live in their native land struggle against the threat posed
by urban sprawl to their territorial integrity, as well as against real estate speculation, the
division of communal lands into lots, deforestation, overexploitation of aquifers and the lack
of recognition of their traditional authorities. So, while the demands of those in their native
land are related to ‘power and property, to local capacity in decision-making’,21 those of
migrants are related to the recognition of their political, economic and citizenship rights and
to the need for the implementation of public policies that benefit them. The tension between
these demands is marked by the potential that the territorial rights pursued by indigenous
people in their native lands have to deprive of their rights the citizens residing in these areas,
including indigenous migrants (Figueroa 2005: 263).
A question of great relevance is how to reconcile native and migrant rights in a
legislation on indigenous rights in Mexico City that takes into account what both groups have
in common and where they differ. Regardless of their differing views in this debate, all
writers address the need to incorporate indigenous rights into Mexico City’s institutions and
legal framework (López 2006: 349 and 355). This matter deserves special attention in
migration studies, because it has important public policy implications. It is important to define
the approach from which these policies must be developed. Alejandro López (2006: 365)
suggests that a perspective is needed that emphasizes both universal rights and cultural
diversity, as opposed to the approach of the federal government, which is based on combating
The original Spanish reads: ‘indígenas residentes’.
The original Spanish reads: ‘¿Qué implica en términos de otorgamiento de derechos la distinción
entre migrante y originario?’.
20
The original Spanish reads: ‘Problemática de migrantes: limitado el acceso a piso básico de
servicios… el racismo y la discriminación/no acceso a ciudadanía plena; el no acceso a la educación
bilingüe/bicultural; la deserción escolar; la ausencia de políticas públicas con respecto a las mujeres y
niños migrantes’.
21
The original Spanish reads: ‘el poder y la propiedad, con la capacidad local en la toma de
decisiones’.
18
19
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poverty among indigenous people. Heeding López’s suggestion means attending to the issues
that arise from the contextual situation of indigenous people in the city, which will make it
possible to address their needs and demands.
The Marcelo Ebrard administration (2006-2012) implemented human rights policies
leading to the development of the Mexico City Human Rights Program (2009), which formed
the basis for the Mexico City Human Rights Law, enacted in 2011. This programme takes
into account the city’s cultural diversity and acknowledges that even though indigenous
people and communities may come from different places (they can be native or migrants),
they all need their shared collective rights to be recognized, without overlooking their specific
rights (Hernández 2010: 3). The programme defines a series of rights that form the basis for
advancing public policies and strengthening legislation; among others, they include the right
to maintain a community identity, the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to
access to justice, the right to land/territory, the right to work, the right to adequate housing,
the right to the use of public spaces and the right to education and health care.
In order to address the legal vacuum in terms of indigenous rights, in 2011 and 2012 a
bill on the Rights and Culture of Indigenous and Native People in Mexico City was debated,
though not passed into law. In Mexico City, Miguel Ángel Mancera’s administration (elected
in 2012) has approved a comprehensive draft indigenous Bill for native and migrant people
living here. The Bill, which has not yet been passed by the Mexico City Legislative
Assembly, includes, among others, the right to autonomy and self-determination, political
rights, rights related to the administration of justice and law enforcement, the right to
education, cultural and social rights and the right to economic development (see, Comité de
Mecanismo de la Consulta 2014). I would like to emphasize two aspects that I consider to be
significant in this bill. First, the Bill recognizes native and migrant indigenous people as
‘entities in public law with legal personality and their own assets’22 (art. 7), which has
important consequences for the exercise of individual and collective rights. Second, it
distinguishes between the rights of Native People and Neighbourhoods and the rights of
Indigenous Resident Communities made up of migrants. So, the aspects shared by these two
groups, the situations specific to each group and the need to differentiate between the rights
granted to them are all taken into consideration. For example, in the chapter on Autonomy
and Self-Determination, the former group is granted the right to establish ‘self-governance in
the territories as they see fit’23 (art. 13), while the territorial dimension is not mentioned in the
case of indigenous migrants and reference is made only to their right to autonomy ‘in the
identity-related spaces or places where they regularly carry out cultural, social, political or
economic activities’24 (art. 36). As far as I am aware, there are few academic publications that
address the matter of rights and justice among indigenous migrants in Mexico City, though
The original Spanish reads: ‘entidades de derecho público con personalidad jurídica y patrimonio
propio’.
23
The original Spanish reads: ‘autogobierno en los ámbitos territoriales que así lo concideren’.
24
The original Spanish reads: ‘en los espacios o lugares identitarios en los cuales realizan de manera
recurrente alguna actividad cultural, social, política y económica (art. 36).’
22
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there have been debates in which academics have participated (Díaz 2013) alongside
members of the city government and of indigenous organizations. It would appear that
indigenous rights and justice continue to be underreported in the literature on migration to
Mexico’s capital city. Nonetheless, the nature of the topic and the impact that it will have on
public policy in the city if this bill is passed suggest that this issue needs urgent attention and
debate among academics and other interested parties.
Various authors have highlighted migrants’ needs in terms of justice (see, for example,
Yanes 2004 and Sánchez 2004). Rebecca Igreja’s (2004) work on justice and indigenous
organizations in Mexico City introduces the issue of legal pluralism, as she shows that some
communities and organizations reproduce and re-signify — with different levels of intensity
— the norms and conflict resolution procedures of their places of origin. As indigenous forms
of regulation mix with state law, we witness the occurrence of situations of inter-legality,
understood as the articulation and hybridization of different normative systems. This is a
novel formulation in migration studies, as anthropological research on justice in Mexico has
been focused on documenting inter-legal processes in rural areas of the country.
The norms and procedures for the functioning of groups and organizations constitute a
central part of migrants’ daily lives in the city. The members of ethnic groups create new
norms of coexistence in accordance with the context in which they live and, largely in
assemblies, seek ways to resolve conflicts and settle disputes within the group (Igreja 2004:
427). In this adaptation of the justice system to their interests and needs, some groups aim to
recover the traditional justice of their places of origin while others do not, indicating that
among indigenous migrants there are different ways of resolving the problems associated with
living together. Furthermore, they make strategic use of state law, creating ‘spaces of
negotiation and inter-legality’25 (Igreja 2004: 434), even though indigenous people are
notably excluded from state justice institutions — as from other spheres of social life, due to
their ethnic and class positions. The administration of justice is also inadequate as, in line
with what happens across the country, indigenous people are often not recognized as such in
the Mexico City’s justice institutions and have to face deficiencies in legal proceedings, such
as not having access to indigenous language translators. Young people are criminalized by
legal authorities, facing criminal proceedings for drug addiction and delinquency. The
authorities do not consider them to be indigenous because they do not speak the language of
their parents, so when they are called to testify in court they find themselves in an ambiguous
situation; they do not know whether they should identify themselves as indigenous in order to
obtain institutional and legal support based on their ethnicity (Igreja 2008, Oehmichen
2003b). This example further demonstrates the difficulties that occur when the state
establishes rigid definitions of what is indigenous, often requiring a person to speak an
indigenous language in order to be categorized as such. In these cases, the dimension of lived
experience is lost from sight, as are the subjective and objective aspects that lead indigenous
people to define themselves as such.
25
The original Spanish reads: ‘espacios de negociación e interlegalidad’.
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Conclusion
The foregoing discussion of recent research has brought out the centrality of the ethnic
dimension both in the constitution of organizations and in their demands and has stimulated
reflection on the consequences of practising multiculturalism in national legislation. In
addition to this, we have seen that there are public policies of great importance on human
rights in Mexico City. These policies are taking the lead on this issue in the country, though a
law attending to indigenous rights in the city has not yet been passed. The performance of
policies aimed at meeting the needs and demands of the indigenous population constitutes an
important future field of study, extending to the inevitable conflicts and debates to which the
application of such policies will undoubtedly give rise. The different political agendas of the
indigenous organizations in the cities is another emerging field of study, as is that pertaining
the role of women in these organizations and their specific demands. To sum up, the issues
addressed here show that despite growing civic awareness about indigenous rights, these
rights have yet to be fully realized.
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20